by Midnite Love
Chapter 7 - Who Is Sonnet?
“I see you found your way back,” Royce announced as he spied Sonnet creeping up in his peripheral vision. Never turning in her direction, the elderly man packed his pipe full of tobacco and lit it up. He then pulled his holey skull cap off and scratched the wooly white mass on his head before replacing it. “You ain’t got to stand there, come have a seat.”
Sonnet sat down on a cinder block beside the old man and wrapped her arms around herself to shield herself from the wind.
She watched as he rifiled though his bags as though looking for a lost treasure. It was funny how regular old grocery store bags were garbage to some, and prized possessions to others. The ragged, beaten down suit case in his buggy was junk to someone else, yet houte couture to him. The more she stared suddenly she could see something she’d never saw before when she looked at a homeless person. Beneath all the tattered, dirty clothing, and scruffy appearance she saw a once handsome man who somehow lost his way in life. She saw a human being. His dark skin was ashy and weather beaten. His run-over shoes looked as though they had traveled a thousand miles. And inside his eyes were a million stories waiting to be told.
“Ah here it is,” Royce announced as he pulled a Slim Jim from his bag. “I knew I had another one.”
He took another puff from his pipe before handing the beef stick to Sonnet. “You hungry?”
Sonnet took the Slim Jim but she couldn’t open it due to the fact that she was overcome with emotion.
“Why are so nice to me?” she asked as she choked back the tears. “I’m a horrible person. If I wasn’t homeless I wouldn’t have given you a second look. If you walked up to my car asking for money I wouldn’t have even looked in your direction.”
“No surprise there, we invisible to most folks. I’m nice ‘cause it don’t cost me nothing to treat people like I wanna be treated,” he replied.
“My buggy and my dog were stolen from me today. God is punishing me and I deserve every bit of it.”
“You ever thought that the Lord may be trying to tell you something?”
“What do you mean?” Sonnet asked with a look of confusion. She had heard those same words from Sista Bessie.
“What I mean is, how did you end up here?”
“What kind of question in that? I had a string of shitty luck like everybody else out here.”
“Young lady how long do you think I’ve been on these streets?” the old timer asked.
“I don’t know.... what does that have to do with anything?”
“Thirty years..... I lost my family and job to drugs when I was thirty-five years old. I told myself the same bullshit story you just gave me, that it was run of bad luck. And that this was some sort of punishment that I deserved. When the truth was I was a fucking coward, I’d given up on life. It was too hard trying to be someone I’m not, trying to fit in, trying to please everyone and always falling short of the mark. Truth is I was too lazy and prideful to pull myself out of this shit hole. This was easy, so the streets became who I was. Don’t let them become who you are.”
As Sonnet listened to Royce’s story she began to cry uncontrollably. His words had hit home with her in a way that she never imagined.
“What the hell do you know about my life?” She spewed in an almost indignant tone.
“I may be old, but one thing I’m not is a fool,” he replied with a chuckle. If it were one thing that Royce knew, it was when he was being bullshitted.
“I know you ain’t like the rest of the homeless folks out here. You ain’t cut out for this shit. I could tell that the first day I saw you. From what I can tell you ain’t on no dope, and I can tell you got a good head on your shoulders by listening to you talk. Even right down to that pedigree pooch of yours. I can tell you use to be high society at one time. So what your story? Hmm? How did a young beautiful woman like you get caught up in these streets?”
Sonnet stood from the block she was sitting on and stared straight ahead in the crackling flame.
“When I was a little girl my momma worked her ass off to try and give me and my brother whatever she could. My father died when we were young. Not that it would have mattered, he didn’t do shit for us when he was alive.
I distinctively remember at one time, when things got really bad, I had four outfits in rotation. And only one pair of school shoes. I didn’t get teased for my clothing seeing all the other kids were just about in the same boat. Most of the kids from my old neighborhood grew up poor. I remember my cousins Trina and Towanda always having more than me and my brother due to the fact that they had two parents and both of them had good jobs. My uncle Joe always made good money and kept a clean ride and a pretty home. Whenever we would visit each other I was jealous of their clothes and all the toys they got for Christmas. They always had the latest video games and always had cable at their house. I was jealous that they got to go to the shop to get their hair done; instead of momma’s kitchen. I use to wish that me and my brother lived with them. I secretly hated my mother for not being able to provide for us the way Uncle Joe did for his kids. I was young and didn’t realize that my momma was struggling like hell just to keep a roof over our head and food on the table. There simply wasn’t any extra money for luxuries.
“So you blamed your mother for y’all being poor?” Royce asked. “Interesting, go on.”
“Yeah... I mean I was young and didn’t know any better, by the time I entered junior high school my momma had a better job and was able to hook us up with some of the stuff we had been missing out on. However, by now I was already starting to see how the kids with designer clothes and shoes were being treated by their peers. Yeah, I had more clothes at this point but none of them were name brands. I watch the kids with Jordan’s, Sean John and Baby Phat getting all the attention. They were the popular kids and I wanted to be just like them. Also by now the tone was already set for who the “it” crowd hung out with. Most of us girls whose parents shopped at Walmart didn’t get to hang with the girls whose parents shopped at Macy’s. They weren’t a huge crowd. And the rest of the kids in the school called them snooty, yet they still broke their necks to try and hang with them.
For this reason no matter how much my mom gave me it was never enough. I would get something with a name on it every now and then, but I wanted more. I wanted to dress like the popular girls at my school. When I look back I now realize all the pressure and headache I was giving my momma only added to her stress and probably contributed to her health deteriorating. All I knew was, by the time I got to high school I wasn’t going to depend on her or anyone else to get the things I wanted. I was determined to get them for myself by any means necessary.”
Sonnet shook her head in disgust as she shared her story. It wasn’t until she actually heard herself speaking the words out loud that she realized how long she had been trapped in a world of trying to fit in and please others instead of being herself.
“That’s a damn shame,” Royce replied. “I get how some kids can get caught up though. I hope yo momma told you to sit yo ass down somewhere and get yo head out the clouds,” he chuckled.
“Oh she did, every day,” Sonnet nodded.
“She used to say it didn’t matter what kind of clothes a man wore, what mattered was what was in his heart. When everyone use to call me pretty as a little girl she would remind me that pretty meant nothing if I wasn’t a good person. As I got older I soon realized that was bullshit. If you had money and looked good the world was yours for the taking. I know momma meant well but regardless of what she tried to teach; I saw it again and again, Ugly women getting overlooked for pretty ones, As long as they dressed nice and looked the part they didn’t have to have an education or much of anything else. Many of them got jobs or opportunities over less attractive women. Hell, that’s even if they wanted to work. It’s not like they had too. There’s always a rich man looking to have a dime on his arm. So in essence momma wasn’t talking about shit. At least that’s what I thought.”<
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Sonnet pondered in thought as she looked down and played with the wrapper on the beef stick.
“My momma was diagnosed with breast cancer when I entered the ninth grade. As her health went down she eventually had to stop working and go out on disability. This once again put us back in a position to where we were struggling. By now I didn’t give a damn. I was shoplifting every chance I got to get the things I wanted. It’s a miracle I never got caught. The beginning of my junior year my mother died. My brother and I went to live with my Aintee Maven but she was just as broke as my momma. I mean she took care of us but she still could provide me the lifestyle I wanted to live.”
“You mean like your mother, she couldn’t afford to pamper your spoiled ass?” Royce asked.
“Call it what you want, but I wasn’t trying to turn out like my family, broke and struggling. That shit was for the birds, still is... you can best believe by the time I graduated I had hooked up with the captain of the football team. His family had money and he stayed fresh as hell with a bad ass ride and always kept money in his pocket. I knew if I became his girl he would buy me anything I wanted.”
Royce didn’t respond. Instead he just sat back and shook his head. The more he listened to Sonnet’s tale he soon became aware that she was a gold- digger in the making at an early age. This explained at lot about why she was on the streets without her having to say another word.
“After I graduated and went to college I realized that I wasn’t cut out for working. I mean I ended up earning a degree in accounting and business management but I just couldn’t see myself sitting up in some office working a nine to five gig for pennies when it was bitches out here living like queens and didn’t have to lift a finger. I made up my mind then that this was going to be me.
Making a long story short I achieved everything I set out to do. I had a bad ass crib, only dressed in designer labels, kept a clean whip and money in my pocket. I had niggas falling all over me, wanting to buy me shit. Damn I was living the dream,” Sonnet smiled as she reminisced on the bad bitch she once was.
Royce could just about guess the answer but he decided to ask anyway. “So what happened? How did you end up here?”
“I got gipped out of all my loot by a broke ass loser posing as a millionaire.” It made Sonnet sick to the stomach to even think about how Rayquan had tricked her.
By now Royce was doubled over in laughter.
“What the hell is so funny?” Sonnet spat. She couldn’t believe this old fool was laughing at her misfortune. “I lost everything because of that asshole scamming me. As a matter of fact I just saw his punk ass at the soup kitchen. Can you believe that? I wanted to kill that son of a bitch!” she ranted.
“Kill him for what?” Royce asked after catching his breath. “Cause you got beat at your own game? If you wouldn’t have been scamming yo damn self, you wouldn’t have gotten caught up. I’m just keeping it real. You have nobody to blame but yourself for the situation you put yourself in.”
Sonnet’s face twisted into a frown. She had a half a mind to cuss his ass out but deep down she knew he was telling the truth. That shit was just hard to swallow.
“I’m already down, no need to kick me,” she replied in a cynical tone.
“You’re right, I’m sorry go on with your story.”
“Nothing else to tell. I lost everything and ended up out on the street.”
Royce had a feeling that there was more to the story than Sonnet was sharing. He was smart enough to know that help was most likely offered to her before it got to this point and she somehow blew it. He was absolutely right. Out of shame she never told him about Cheron taking her in and how she’d betrayed her. She also never shared her experience at the house with Sista Bessie and how that also could have been a chance for her to get herself together. Instead she chose to continue playing the victim.
“Did your family know what was going on? Why didn’t you try to stay with one of them?”
“Nah I wasn’t going to let them know I was broke so they could throw that shit up in my face. They was already hating cause I was living on a level they broke asses couldn’t comprehend on. Besides, I don’t even talk to my Aintee or the rest of those leeches. That shit is water under the bridge.”
“Ok I get it now, you homeless because you a damn fool.”
“Go to hell, who are you to judge my situation?”
“You stood right there and told me that you didn’t want your family to know that you was broke because you didn’t want them throwing it up in your face. You would rather live on the damn street, eating out of dumpsters than swallow your pride and have a roof over your head? If that ain’t foolish I don’t know what is. And for the record I don’t judge you. I just think you are too young to be making the biggest mistake of your life. You sound like you have some animosity towards your family and you need to let that shit go. Get on your feet first, then you can tell everyone to kiss your ass. Don’t fuck around and end up like me, full of pride and anger. I’ll probably die on these streets but that doesn’t have to be your fate.”
“You right, I can’t stand my family. Aside from my Uncle Joe They are all broke as hell. Still living in the damn hood after all these years. I hustle and did whatever I had to too claw my way out of the shithole they call poverty and I won’t apologize for it.”
Sonnet was faced with the realization that the real reason she despised her family was they represented everything she was trying to avoid becoming. Watching Aintee Maven struggle the way she did frightened her and angered her at the same time. Her worst nightmare was ending up like her, living from paycheck to paycheck. Ironically that’s exactly how she ended up. They very thing she’d spent her entire life running from stood boldly in her face in the form of sleeping in a cardboard box and begging for handouts. Royce was right about one thing, she was a fool to choose the streets over her pride. However if she was going to pull herself up by her bootstraps it was going to have to be without the help of family and friends. There was no way she was going to let anyone she knew see her in this condition. This one battle she would have to fight alone.
Chapter 8 - Turn Down For What?
Now that Cheron had lost weight she began lifting weights to further her transformation. She wasn’t trying to get ripped but she did want to add some tone and definition to her arms and legs and lift her butt.
The hair cut she’d gotten when she was with her mother had now grown out to the perfect length and framed her face beautifully. She even splurged on all new makeup as well as more sexy outfits
She was getting attention left and right from men who wouldn’t have given her a second look before. True enough she never had a problem attracting men, but now she was being scouted by the ones who preferred slimmer frames. Between the weight loss from stress and her working out she was now down to a curvy size eight and it looked damn good on her.
The clean diet she’d take on caused her energy level to shoot through the roof. And her skin looked more amazing than it already did before. The crazy part was her recent health kick didn’t manage to work its way into her social life.
Cheron had become more reckless than she’d been in her entire life. She blamed her wild partying, late nights and heavy drinking on her new found confidence. She told herself that the reason she was entertaining the attention of a new man almost every night was because she was finally feeling better about herself than she had in years, when in fact, deep down she was still hurting. And nothing was going to help her heal except time.
Chapter 9 - It Takes A Fool
“Quit stalling and bring yo’ ass on man!” Red yelled from the kitchen as he grabbed himself a bottle of Dasani water from the refrigerator.
“I’m coming nigga damn,” Kenterris replied as he made his way to the front room. “Now explain to me again why I gotta ride with you.”
“Because yo’ ass been holed up like a damn recluse since you and your girl broke up. I told Craig and JT to meet us at the club. But I k
now yo’ punk ass will try to dip out after ten minutes if I let you ride by yourself.
“Shut the hell nigga, let’s go,” Kenterris gripped.
It was true; Kenterris’ days consisted of going to work, then coming home veg’ing out in front of the TV. He no longer went to the gym, or balled with his boys on the weekend. His six pack abs were now replaced with the makings of a miniature beer gut. This wasn’t like him to let himself go, but his numerous failed attempts at getting Cheron to come back to him left him feeling depressed and lonely. Not only was she ignoring his calls and texts, she even returned a card he sent her in the mail issuing one of his many apologies. He knew that he had messed up in a major way. But even still, he never thought they would be apart this long. His friends Red, JT and Craig were determined to get him out of his funk. He reluctantly agreed to go to out with them that evening.
Once they got their valet ticket the pair made their way into the packed club. The music thumped loudly as they weaved their way through the crowd, they were stalled every few moments by groupies looking for a come up.
“Damn the thirst is real with these broads. You shouldn’t have a problem pulling you some ass tonight,” Red grinned as he spied the two, half naked young females who had Kenterris hemmed up.
When he finally managed to pry himself away he headed straight to the bar and ordered a double shot of Remy VSOP and downed it. The ordered another to take with him.
“Damn nigga slow down, we got a long night ahead of us,” Red announced. “Come on, I see JT, he’s got a table for us.”
Once they were seated the men place a drink order. Craig, JT and Red scoped the room for their first target while Kenterris played with his phone.